Maryland governor Martin O’Malley can still see White House

Maryland governor Martin O'Malley had his arm twisted to play a few songs at a party hosted by the Ireland Funds, the Irish-American philanthropic group, in Washington last month. His second song was an impressive acapella rendition of the Star Spangled Banner.

The former Baltimore mayor fronts his own Irish rock band, O’Malley’s March. With a pint of Guinness in hand, he told me afterwards that at a push he knows about 600 Irish songs.

The non-Irish song was the one that stood out on that evening. If O’Malley’s presidential credentials were to be adjudged on his singing of the American national anthem, he would be a shoo-in for Democratic presidential candidate in 2016. But he is not.

Hillary Clinton, the former first lady and most recently President Obama’s first secretary of state, is clear favourite to be the party’s contender, with her support hovering at about 63 per cent, based on an average of polls since June analysed by politics website Real Clear Politics, even though she has not yet said that she is running.

The Maryland governor, whose great-grandfather emigrated from Maam, Co Galway, is trailing Vice President Joe Biden, Massachusetts governor Elizabeth Warren, New York governor Andrew Cuomo and Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders, all of whom run well behind Clinton.

O’Malley, who is term-limited and out of a job in 2015 when he steps down as governor, has, like Clinton, been campaigning for fellow Democrats running in next week’s midterm elections.

This year he has made four appearances in Iowa and five in New Hampshire, states that are crucial in the early heats of the presidential race.

Given the strength of Clinton’s lead and the overwhelming presumption that she will run, the 51-year-old politician is assumed to be a younger, fall-back candidate should the 67-year-old former New York senator unexpectedly decide not to run or should she slip up.

O'Malley's support for Clinton against Obama in 2008 has not distracted him from his own plans. He told the Los Angeles Times in July that he was "seriously considering" a presidential bid.

The New York Times declared this week over a profile article: "Martin O'Malley, A Hillary Clinton Loyalist, is Now a Potential 2016 Alternative". He declined to tell the newspaper how he would differ from Clinton. "My mind is not even in the compare-contrast mode," he said.

Progressive policies

The Maryland governor’s progressive policies - during his time in the State House in Annapolis he has repealed the death penalty, passed stringent gun control laws and introduced same-sex marriage - marks him out as a natural heir to Obama’s political agenda.

But O’Malley, like other Democrats, has distanced himself from an unpopular president, most notably on immigration, when he said that unaccompanied minors from Central America arriving at the border with Mexico should not be sent home to “certain death”, comments that drew some nasty background briefing against him by the White House.

This week he sought to step out of Clinton’s shadow, saying that he was not looking to raise his profile with the aim of being picked as her vice-presidential nominee or for a seat at her cabinet should she win.

“They would say that about anyone who was contemplating doing this as a relative unknown,” he said. “But history is full of relative unknowns who go and do the hard work, put together a more compelling framework for our country’s future, and go out and campaign.”

Gary Hart, the new US envoy to Northern Ireland whose 1984 presidential campaign O'Malley worked on when Hart came from way behind to almost win the Democratic nomination, told the New York Times: "He should run, not only for his own sake but I think for the party's sake."

A man elected mayor of Baltimore, a city with a majority African-American population, certainly cannot be written off, at the very least to make picking a Democratic candidate more interesting than a one-horse race.